Letter to Our Banjar

Dear Banjar-

I have enjoyed all of our efforts thus far in working together to create a community to learn about Asian culture and dance. I feel like our journey is just beginning, although we are now halfway through the semester. For the remainder of the semester, I want to work on taking what we’ve learned and worked on in class to outside the classroom as well. I want to put in effort (other than reading the Ramayana and doing my blog) on my own time to practice the dances, learn the chants, work on my breathing, and concentrate on the placement of my voice and breath. It’s a lot more challenging trying to do the dance steps by yourself in your room, so I think I am going to try to make time with some friends outside of class where we can get together and exchange questions and concerns, and work on our dancing. I feel like this is one of the only ways our banjar can move forward at this point – if people don’t put effort in outside of class time, we will just keep repeating how to do the steps that we’ve learned. More so than the dances outside of class, I want to work on stretching and breathing. I feel like this part of class – the beginning, when we walk in and stretch as a group – is one of the most spiritual times of the class for me. It’s one of the only times of the day where I am focused internally on myself, and what my body is doing. I feel like this is a simple thing to do on my own and thus get more in touch with my own body.

As for the final performance, I am open to many things. I definitely want to work in a smaller group of just a few people in order to really accomplish some unity and coherence. I would love to work on musical or theatre aspects, rather than just dance, whether it is some kind of rhythm and chanting or something else. I am envisioning a small group making intricate rhythms through different chants while simultaneously incorporating some dance or theatre aspects to act out a scene. I picture one person in the group standing up and performing while the rest of the group continues the chant and then switching as the story progresses. Or something like this…

Anyways – thanks to everyone for such a great year thus far, and I hope the rest of the semester continues to be this rewarding.

Ellie